ESTIMATION OF CARBON SEQUESTRATION BASED ON DIFFERENT METHODS: A CASE STUDY OF ORTAKÖY FOREST PLANNING UNIT

Emerging technology and increasing population growth are causing more pollutants and more polluting gases to be released into the air. One of the most important pollutant on the air is carbon dioxide and therefore; carbon. Carbon, also holding the primary responsibility of global warming, is present in soil, water, green plants, especially forests and on the air in the state of oscillation. Because of global treaties, the countries that have signed the Kyoto Protocol, Combating Desertification and Climate Change, have to take a number of actions about both pollutant gases and their reduction. Turkey is calculating the carbon sinks and revealing the current situation regarding the pollutant gases. Our country will have to make promises in order to keep or reduce the gases released to the air at a certain level in the future. For this reason, carbon pools must be accurately identified and calculated. In Turkey, the amount of carbon held in the forests, was first calculated based on the biomass account by using the coefficients developed by ASAN on the basis of biomass calculations for needle-leaved and broad-leaved forests. In the last term, methods and coefficients were updated according to the FRA-2010 guidelines, which separately calculate the carbon in the degraded areas and the carbon in deadwood. This study was prepared to reveal the differences between the two methods in Ortaköy Forest Planning Unit in Artvin Regional Directorate of Forestry. The total amount of carbon stock in the research area was calculated by using the Geographical Information Systems database with the aid of the stand parameters according to the two different methods mentioned. As a result, 5840 tons of carbon were found to be less in the FRA method since using method and biomass expansion factors are different from the Asan methods. Unlike the other method, the carbon accumulation value in the degraded areas was found to be about 381 (22% of total carbon) thousand tons.